The Creation and Re-Creation of the Adat Village in West Sumatra, Indonesia
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International Journal of Innovation, Creativity and Change. www.ijicc.net Volume 14, Issue 8, 2020 The Creation and Re-creation of the Adat Village in West Sumatra, Indonesia Adri Febriantoa, Semiarto A. Purwantob*, a Department of Sociology and Anthropology Education, Universitas Negeri Padang, Indonesia, bDepartment of Anthropology, Universitas Indonesia, Indonesia. *corresponding author: [email protected] Over time, village governance in Indonesia has undergone many changes. In the pre-colonial era, villages were organised according to the local customary law called ‘adat’, and today, those same villages are part of the modern state. Suharto’s centralised New Order regime led to dramatic changes in village governance, as all villages were arranged uniformly in a system called ‘desa’. Changes to the law after Suharto left office were marked by regional autonomy, which allowed local governments to manage their own territories in accordance with local conditions. Some desa chose to return to an adat village system. The village dynamics have, more recently, been heightened with the passing of the Village Law, which allocates funds to villages to manage independently. This has resulted in the subdivision of villages, in order to acquire more funds. In this paper, we argue that the trend in village splitting is not necessarily related to changes in the law or political events. Based on ethnographic research conducted in a village in West Sumatra, this paper concludes that the dynamics of returning to the customary order, and the decisions to divide villages are influenced by factors of history, tradition and local culture, and by a momentum not previously experienced. Keywords: Adat village, Customary law, Village government, Indonesia, West Sumatra Introduction The Indonesian villages are the country’s smallest administrative units, which have marked post-Suharto democratisation with various important events. Through the process of democratisation, the political participation of village actors and institutions has increased, the reorganisation of village forms was carried out, villages were 597 International Journal of Innovation, Creativity and Change. www.ijicc.net Volume 14, Issue 8, 2020 provided with funds to stimulate economic development, and hopes for prosperity were raised. The local institutions, and leadership in the regions, such as Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia, are of interest to scholars of the democratisation process. The research into community-based development and civil society has been conducted in Indonesia (Antlöv, 2003; Antlöv et al., 2016). In Italy, Putnam (1993) has explored civic community, and social capital. The World Bank has conducted research on village institutions and leadership, such as local level institution studies in Bolivia, Burkina Faso, and Indonesia (Grootaert et al., 1999; Wetterberg, Jellema & Dharmawan, 2014), and local governance reforms in Europe, and the United States (US) (Berg & Rao, 2005). For Indonesia, in particular, the impact of political reform on the political elite has been explored, and a specific approach has been taken to the phenomenon of elite survival, and the significant role of established elites in Indonesia’s democratic transition (Permana, 2017: 4). Other research in Indonesia has explored the importance of local customs and identity (Choi, 2011; Henley & Davidson, 2008; Aspinall & Fealy, 2003), and the rise of the civil society (Antlöv et al., 2010; Takano, 2008; Nordholt & Klinken, 2007). In addition to monitoring democratisation, decentralisation, and community- based development processes, some initiatives have been undertaken to encourage civil society institutions to promote government accountability and effectiveness in sectors such as education, health, and social capital, in an effort to improve community welfare or reduce poverty (Grootaert et al., 1999; Wetterberg et al., 2014). Henley and Davidson (2007) argue that traditions and customs in Indonesian politics are important to understand the contemporary Indonesian political landscape. For instance, local governance arrangements often reflect the culturally demanded struggle for power and culturally motivated efforts to gain access to power (Bebbington et al., 2004). These authors argue that community-driven development and decentralisation programmes must pay attention to village level tensions, as inherent cultural forms and local traditions can easily exacerbate potentially complex conflicts. In January 2014, Law Number 6/2014 on the Villages Government was issued. This decentralisation policy frees villages from a higher-level governmental authority by granting village autonomy. However, it has created loopholes for democratic institutions that aim to revitalise village development, as a village’s democratically elected ‘Badan Perwakilan Desa’ or Village Representative Body cannot really play a role in establishing strategic decisions (Antlöv, 2003; Antlöv et al., 2016). In addition to giving villages wider autonomy, this law also explicitly provides options for the return to the adat, as this law allows for a return to, or a re-creation of, a village model rooted 598 International Journal of Innovation, Creativity and Change. www.ijicc.net Volume 14, Issue 8, 2020 in the adat, which is already embedded in local social systems (Vel & Bedner, 2015). Adat is a loose term used by Indonesians to refer to old and traditional social arrangements, and it sometimes also refers to traditions or customary laws. The return to adat is also perceived as a means to recognise the traditional rights of rural communities, to strengthen weak governance arrangements and to empower villages to meet development needs, and reduce poverty and social inequality (Antlöv et al., 2016). In West Sumatra, this policy has been perceived as a form of political freedom and decentralisation following the collapse of the centralised Suharto regime in 1998. The period since has been one of contestation and continuously negotiated adat relations, in an attempt to ensure that the village realm is legally and formally represented by the State. One major change that has occurred in relation to decentralisation is the reorganisation of village administration, known as ‘back to the nagari’ (Vel & Bedner, 2015). The nagari is a traditional village structure which has existed since long before national independence. It has roots in pre-colonial political organisations and is part of the adat system. In 1983, the traditional Minangkabau village government became desa, with attendant changes to the concept of territory and traditional institutions. Customary leaders were replaced by State officials, who became village leaders. Despite this, the Provincial Regulation Number 13/1983 stated that adat institutions would continue to apply to the regulation of daily life at the community level (Benda-Beckmann & Benda- Beckmann, 2006). This phenomenon of dualism between the formal rules governing village administration and customary rules at the community level has previously been discussed in the Indonesian contexts by Nordholt (2005), Pichard (2005), and Warren (2007). In 2014, the Village Government Law Number 6/2014, which is operationalised through the Government Regulation Number 60/2014 concerning Village Funds, gave rise to a very different dynamic. Some villages are divided into two or three smaller villages, with the hope that communities in these new villages will receive village funding. Village elites now compete for legitimacy to create new villages. In West Sumatra, where village funding is lower than in other Sumatran provinces, a number of nagari have been divided, so that village funds can be increased (Firdaus, 2017). In addition to the long discourse about democratisation in post-Suharto villages, which are concerned with the institutional, leadership, and village-splitting issues associated with village fund incentives, a different trend has been observed in Nagari Pariangan, in the Tanah Datar District, West Sumatra. In this paper, we argue that village dynamics in Nagari Pariangan are not merely the result of political and legal issues brought about by changes to regulations and laws. Foresight, historical context, local pride, and a momentum that has happened by chance, all provide a new explanation of the changes taking place in Indonesian villages today. The defence of this argument begins by 599 International Journal of Innovation, Creativity and Change. www.ijicc.net Volume 14, Issue 8, 2020 placing Nagari Pariangan in the Minangkabau cultural structure, narrating the changes during the New Order era and the post-Suharto era, and exploring the current momentum created by tourism development. Thus, the creation of an adat village as an example of the political and cultural identity making cannot be explained in a single explanation. However, over a discourse of creation as a way to challenge structure (Rapport & Overing, 2000), we are also aware that the process will always link to other matters, such as history (Spillman, 1997), policy reform and change (Harrell, 2001; Belshaw, 2014), and several old cultural practices (MacClancy, 2019; Wulff, 2019). Therefore, we must notice that in talking about creation, at the same time, we need to think about re-creation, since it is in fact a cyclical process. Methods We conducted research in Nagari Pariangan, a village located in the Pariangan Subdistrict, Tanah Datar District, in West Sumatra. This nagari is administratively divided into four jorong